movies: the king's speech

It surprised me when I first heard about The King's Speech that while I knew bits of information about the people around King George VI (or "Bertie")... like Winston Churchill, King Edward VIII & Wallace Simpson... but I don't know that I knew anything at all about George, especially about any kind of speech impediment.

And as it turns out, finding out about it made for a very enjoyable movie experience.

The three leads are incredibly good... not just Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush who spark off each other beautifully but also Helena Bonham Carter who is incredibly sweet as the Queen.

In fact Nina Gold, the casting director, has to be applauded along with the whole makeup and hair team for firstly picking excellent actors that bore a resemblance to the real people, but then to make them up so expertly.

While I'm too young to remember the Queen Mother when she was actually the queen, but looking at Helena I could see the woman her character would become.

And the same with the casting of Guy Pearce as Edward... judging from photos I've seen, there's definitely a likeness there.

But like I said, not only do they look the part, but they're all excellent actors, even down to the boys playing Geoffrey's sons.

While I know that it's based on a true story, it also felt very real... there's no real miraculous transformation, no ugly duckling becoming a swan... it's a transition that feels very real and very honest.

Those two words sum it up quite well... real and honest.

And it's funny... not that often, but when it is, it nails the humour beautifully.

Having said that, I did feel that possibly because of the subjects of the movie (the Royal Family essentially) and because it does feel so real, I did feel a little emotionally detached from what was going on.

But overall that's a fairly small criticism of an otherwise smart, funny, well written and beautifully presented movie.

yani's rating: 4 elocution lessons out of 5